This article about ice was published in a magazine in 1875. There is some mention of how ice was harvested from ponds and rivers during the winter months, but the article is mostly about how ice was artificially made, and there is even a picture of Ferdinand Carré's ice machine! —fadedpages.com

Ice is one thing in which Americans revel in the summer-time. No other nation lays in such a stock, or so peremptorily demands an abundant supply. American ice is sold in London, Calcutta, and a hundred places between the two. Usually the ice is "harvested" on ponds or rivers in the North, and the business has created a whole set of peculiar contrivances for scraping off the surface and removing snow; sawing the sheet into blocks without quite detaching; splitting them off; floating them to the hoist; elevating them by endless chains; delivering them to the men who stow them in a solid mass occupying the whole interior of the barn.

More specially noticeable, however, are the machines for congealing water into ice, and which are commencing to work at a price below that at which the ice can be gathered and transported.

Speaking in short terms, there are four modes of making ice—vaporization, radiation, liquefaction, and sudden reduction of pressure.

Vaporization in a partial vacuum formed the basis of Dr. Cullen's attempts in 1755; in 1777 Nairne used sulphuric acid to absorb the vapor rising from water in an exhausted receiver. Ferdinand Carré's apparatus is on this principle, and is used to produce the carafes frappées so common in Parisian restaurants. In the continuous operation of Ferdinand Carré ammonia is employed as being more volatile than water, and under ordinary atmospheric pressure permanently gaseous. The apparatus is somewhat complicated, but effective. The water is in cans in a bath of uncongealable liquid, cooled by zigzag tubes, into which the liquid ammonia is conducted to expand, and thereby convert the sensible heat of the surrounding bath into latent, due to its assumption of the gaseous condition. There are many modifications of the vaporization principle, but no room to tell of them.

Ferdinand Carré's continuous aparatus for ice-making.

Liquefaction is another mode, and snow and ice are used in connection with salts. Combinations of salts are also used. Machines are also used in which air is exhausted by a steam-engine from a receiver, the expansion of liquid into a gaseous condition drawing heat from the water sufficient to congeal it.

Warning - This information has been transcribed from a source that is well over 100 years old. It may be incorrect or outdated in some cases. It is also possible that errors were made during the transcription process. This information is being made available for entertainment purposes only.